


Go

by poisontaster



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-30
Updated: 2009-04-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of one job is really just the start of the next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go

There's blood on the cuff of his shirt with the blue pinstripes. He picks at it absently for a moment with his fingernail, a brief flashback of that moment of acquisition going through his mind. This was a good trip, blood notwithstanding. He takes the shirt into the bathroom and soaks the sleeve under the taps; cold water that burns and numbs his fingers. He normally keeps a small bottle of detergent under the sink but he'd used the last of it a couple weeks ago and forgotten to replace it. Or, not forgotten so much as been too busy. The fridge is similarly neglected, moldy take-out and ancient condiments and a half-drunk bottle of Chardonnay.

The stain yields to scrubbing and Softsoap, though, and Aaron wrings it out carefully before hanging it over the shower rod. He'll take everything to the cleaners later. Even when he was married, this was one task Aaron always insisted on doing for himself. The suits aren't too bad. They'll go to the cleaners too, of course, but none of them need more personal attention. The underwear and undershirts go in a pile. He always plans to wash those himself, too, but it's more likely they'll go with everything else. Doing his own laundry is often soothing, but a luxury of time he can't often afford.

In the drawers of the dresser are unopened packs of boxers and white, tagless tee-shirts. Socks, too, still on their fussy plastic hangers. He buys new packs at least once a month, regular as clockwork. Mostly for ease, though he has to confess that when you spend a good seventy or eighty percent of your time away from home, there's a special pleasure in fresh clothes on tired skin.

He loads the emptied suitcase with new necessities. From under the sink, there are ranks and rows of unopened travel sized toiletries; he picks out new ones--deodorant, toothpaste, mouthwash--and crams them into the narrow bag along with the strip of heads for his razor and the razor itself. Sometimes he thinks longingly of the straight razor he got from his maternal grandfather, but that kind of shaving requires more time and concentration than Aaron has to give to his own face. Disposable has to do, like so many of the other things in his life, reminders that he lives in a temporary world, one that is often an illusion, as well.

New shirts and suits, nestled around the travel iron, because he insists on bringing his own, after that fiasco in Missoula. And then everything is repacked, and he zips the case shut and stows it in its place in the front hall closet, a void among the skis and poles and golf clubs that he never has time to use. The space where the suitcase sits is a sharp oblong, clean of the dust that permeates so much of the rest of the closet. He needs to give it all a good cleaning soon. When he has time.


End file.
